Black Friday Parking 2014 Event

Join us this Friday for #blackfridayparking, a nationwide event to draw attention to the ridiculousness of minimum parking requirements. 

Minimum parking requirements are often justified by the notion that there needs to be enough parking for the peak shopping day. Under that theory, America’s businesses are required to set aside large amounts of land and make enormous capital investments in asphalt and concrete for the sake of a few hours each year. If the theory were true, parking minimums would still be a bizarre misallocation of resources. Unfortunately, our ability to predict peak parking demand is woefully inadequate.

What #blackfridayparking exposes is the systematic way in which cities across the country do harm to our businesses, our neighborhoods and our economy by enforcing arbitrary parking requirements. This practice needs to end. 

Join us this Friday and help us show how destructive minimum parking requirements are.

Take a picture of the empty or underused parking lots in your community. Bonus points for photos that show the most vast, empty spaces.

Upload your photo to Twitter or Instagram and include the hashtag #blackfridayparking. Bonus for including the time and location of your shot. We’ll have all the photos streaming at StrongTowns.org.

Let your friends and neighbors know what you are doing and why. Share the stream at StrongTowns.org. Retweet the photos posted by others and help us reach even more people this year.

Minimum parking standards are destructive.

  • They place unnecessary financial burdens on businesses.
  • They hurt small business competitiveness.
  • They require expensive maintenance.
  • They reduce the tax base.
  • They are not needed and cannot be justified by any credible research.

Urge your city to repeal their minimum parking requirements today.


We made a lot of progress last week on our push for 800 members by the end of the year. We're now just 249 short of that goal. Having a healthy member base going into 2015 is critical for our organization. Keep the momentum going by doing your part and getting signed up today.